TMNT 2: Turtles in Time – Arcade

Hello and happy Monday to you all, I hope you are all done with Christmas shopping and enjoying some time to pick up that retro console and play some truly unforgettable games. For your enjoyment today, I am reviewing a sequel to one of the biggest franchises the world ever laid eyes on…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2:- Turtles in time on the Arcade

Cowabunga dudes! The Turtles are back in action and thrown through time to do battle with the Evil Shredder and Krang’s Foot clan and other bad guys scattered through time and space…past, present and future!

So the game plays pretty much like the original arcade beat em’ up, side scrolling affair with a jump, attack and special attack system in place. You take the role of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo or Raphael ( or if you had the correct set up you could control all 4 with some friends ). For me the game is pretty much an updated Ninja Turtles one machine, that’s not a bad thing, but it’s a little disappointing. The action moves from left to right with bad guys running in to do battle with your Turtle, again the bad guys are recognised by difficulty due to the colours on their clothing and each different colour has a different ability or attack. Some carry swords, some carry nothing and just punch and kick you with martial arts abilities. The animations have been polished up from the original outing, with a new run ability being added that requires nothing more than to keep walking in one direction before breaking into a run. You can do a shoulder tackle during a run which can take down several mobs in one go, which is a great way to control large amounts of bad guys at one time. You can also perform standard attacks with your attack button, a jumping attack and a super swipe attack that will knock most enemies down and destroy them in one hit. The game is quite big level wise, and you can now throw enemies into the screen ( they come flying towards the camera ) or you can hitch one on your weapon and slam them from side to side, which are both amusing to watch. Pizza acts as your health pick ups again, restoring any lost health along the way. Plenty of action to take you through to end of level bosses, which is nice, nothing worse than an empty level of nothing to do. Bosses vary in difficulty depending on level, from Baxter Stockman as the fly to a strange exploding alien in the Sewer level. Talking of which, there’s a nice few levels that break up the walking levels, such as taking to a surf board and gliding through the sewers battling Foot clan soldiers on their boards, and another elevator based level too.

Graphics:- A really nice cartoon effort here by the designers, trying to recreate the TV show ( the best one, not the shoddy remakes ), facial animations, battle animations and scenery are all done really well.

Sound:- Music and lots of speech samples make this a pleasure to play through, for example in the sewer level there are mines floating in the water, hit one and your Turtle will exclaim “My toes, my toes!” makes for a fun experience.

Overall:- Well you know my stand point on games that have a multi-player mode, and 4 player multi-player mode is way up there on my respect list. Worth grabbing 3 friends, huddling round a machine and playing through as a team, trust me, it’s manic!